Further studies on the homogeneous hydrogenation of olefins by use of tris (tertiary phosphine)chlororhodium(I) complexes

Abstract

The effect of the nature of aryl or alkyl groups of the tertiary phosphines in the complex tris(tertiary phosphine)-chlororhodium(I) on the rate of catalytic homogeneous hydrogenation of cyclohexene in benzene solution has been studied.

Kinetic data were determined for complexes of tri-(p-fluorophenyl)phosphine and tri-(p-methoxyphenyl)-phosphine and ΔH^‡ and ΔS^‡ obtained for the latter.

The effects of these changes in phosphine and also various other ligands on the rate of hydrogenation are discussed.